


One Day at a Time

by sous_le_saule



Series: All those fires we've been walking through [2]
Category: God's Own Country
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Confession, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 12:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sous_le_saule/pseuds/sous_le_saule
Summary: “Remember, three weeks ago, when I came home late? You know I was at the pub. But there’s summat I haven’t told you.”(Edited)





	One Day at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you kindly asked for a sequel to "Nobody said it was easy". I hope you'll like it.  
> The series is named after a line from the song "Recover" by Natasha Bedingfield.
> 
> My thanks go to Iamthecoffeedragon who made the first corrections. And I owe a lot to Wideblueskies, who worked hard on my barely intelligible first version (to anyone who's read it, I'm sorry!) and patiently turned it into something much better. Thank you so, so much!

Fuck. It had felt so real.

Sitting up in bed, still half caught in his dream, Johnny takes in the sleeping form of Gheorghe. He refrains from touching him and does his best to stifle his too-loud breathing, so as to not wake him up. And fails. Gheorghe's eyes flutter open. Unwilling to reveal the panic he can still feel displayed across his features, Johnny hastily turns his head towards the window. It was propped open to let in some cool air before the heat of the day. The grey light of dawn is creeping into the room. Running a hand across his sweat-soaked forehead, Johnny finds relief and comfort in the mumble coming from Gheorghe that sounds vaguely like “John”. Judging by the way the mattress shifts, he guesses Gheorghe has propped himself up on one elbow. Johnny doesn't need to look at him to know he's frowning when he asks, voice now clear and concerned, "John? You okay?"

Johnny merely nods, his throat too tight to be able to utter a sound.

Gheorghe places a warm, steadying hand on his arm. “Nightmare?”

The dream was so vivid, Johnny’s hands are still trembling --unless it’s the shakes again. Words are pressing to burst out of him, escaping his firmly shut lips. He doesn’t want to explain. He wishes he could just lie down on top of Gheorghe, in the tangled position that became their habit during the first nights following their return from Scotland, so as to make sure he would never leave again.

But Gheorghe asks, “Do you want to tell me?” so softly, so kindly --why the hell is he so _kind_?-- that the words pour out from Johnny’s treacherous mouth.

“Started like in real life. You left, right after… y’know… an’ I decided to go an’ find you. Except that… I couldn’t. Maybe Nan hadn’t given me the address, I don’t know. I walked an’ walked, an’ it was like you’d just… disappeared. So I came back ‘ere an’ tried to go back to my stupid life, me. Gettin’ drunk an’ buildin’ fences an’ walls. Again an’ again. But… but it was worse than before, y’see, cos, somehow, I _knew._ ” Johnny exhales shakily. “T’was as if I’d seen _this…_ ” He’s not sure how to express it and makes a vague, broad gesture. “ _Us…_ what our life together would’ve been if I’d been able to find you. An’ I could feel the loss of it every day. Every fuckin’ minute. In my dream, I opened my eyes every morning expecting to see you next to me. But you were never there.” He hates that his voice finally cracks, and how whiny he sounds when he finishes pathetically, “An’ I was so cold, like. All the damn time.”

 

There’s no way he could bring himself to calmly unload such personal shit in an AA meeting. Two weeks ago, he’d found himself struck dumb in front of complete strangers and, worse, a farmer from around here Johnny regularly crosses paths with during auctions. Thankfully, they didn’t press him to talk and just let him listen in. He’d felt weak enough. He should have been able to cope by himself. Those people had so much bigger problems than him --that blonde girl… fuck’s sake, he doesn’t want to think about her story again.

He’d left the meeting admonishing himself. He wasn’t weak. He didn’t need help. He could get better without babbling about his life in that daft support group or to some lousy helpline – he’d tried that first but he can’t talk on the phone to save his life.

He could manage. He’d done it, so far. “Yeah, course you ’ave, lad”, he heard his Dad’s sarcastic retort in his mind --reminding him of how rubbish he’d felt when his father had imposed Gheorghe’s help on him, stating that his son wasn’t good enough to run the farm on his own. Fine! He’d done it _until his father’s death_. Still, three years. That must count for something, right? They said the first five days were the worst. Five days. It couldn’t be that hard.

It had been been hell. The nervous tremors. The anxiety. The insomnia. He woke up thinking about alcohol. He went to bed thinking about alcohol. In the meantime, he could barely work. Gheorghe had left only light tasks for him, enough to keep Johnny busy without tiring him out. Even Nan, seemingly emerging from her depression and understanding what was at stake, resumed her iron household management. At dinner, looking at their exhausted faces, Johnny felt both grateful and ashamed.

Conscientiously, he crossed out the days on a calendar he kept in his underwear drawer, next to the ring. Their fourth anniversary was circled in red. 298 more days. If he could hold on until then, it should be safe enough for him to feel like he had a right to propose - one year behind schedule. The last months hadn’t tipped the scales in Johnny’s favour, but he needed to cling on to the hope that Gheorghe might still say yes.

A few more crosses on the calendar and, yesterday, he’d felt better enough to tempt Gheorghe into staying in bed a little longer. They hadn’t had sex since Dad’s death. Johnny was craving Gheorghe’s hands on him more than the alcohol. After having deprived himself of them for so long, he almost cried at Gheorghe’s first careful caresses. As always, it was like his love was springing from his fingertips, radiant tingles spreading all over Johnny’s body. The memory of the dart player’s touches, impersonal and greedy, overcame him. The contrast with Gheorghe’s touches hit Johnny brutally. He’d been so close to ruining everything. How could he have possibly…? Without even bothering about a condom, on top of it. That thought made him immediately lose his erection. He felt even more loathsome when Gheorghe tried to comfort him.      

Later, parked near the grocery store, Johnny had downed half a bottle of cheap gin. Betraying himself, all his efforts and Gheorghe. Tomorrow, he would be back to day one. He didn’t dare go home for a couple of hours. Even so, Gheorghe gave him a knowing look. Averting his gaze, Johnny pitifully muttered, “I’m tryin’.” “I know,” Gheorghe simply said, a hand on his shoulder, with one of his heartening little smiles. 

 

He’s no less agonizingly gentle now, sitting up and slowly rubbing Johnny’s back, making him painfully conscious of not deserving it.

“But you found me,” Gheorghe begins in a low, quiet voice, “and I’m happy you-“

Suddenly, it’s more than Johnny can handle. “Don’t,” he snaps, turning to face Gheorghe who’s looking at him with a puzzled expression. Johnny is been dithering for too long. He must tell him.

As of yesterday, he knows he won’t get through it by himself. He’ll have to talk with their family doctor, as Gheorghe suggested, and probably give those bloody AA a second chance, and Johnny is fully aware he won’t be able to take those steps while also carrying the burden of guilt. Gheorghe. Dad.

“We have to admit the exact nature of our wrongs.” They’d said that, at the meeting. “Make amends to the persons we’ve harmed.” “Except,” they added, “when to do so would injure them”. And that bit has been swirling in Johnny’s head since then. He hates himself for what he’s about to do to him, but Gheorghe has every right to know what Johnny is capable of. Or his proposal will be dishonest. A fucking con.    

God knows he needs a drink right now. Anything. He can’t help imagining the taste in his mouth, the warmth of alcohol running down his throat and settling in his stomach, finally easing the tension in his body. A little bit of liquid courage. He breathes out slowly, keeping his hands still with difficulty.

“Remember, three weeks ago, when I came home late?” he says in a strangled voice, pre-empting Gheorghe’s question. “You know I was at the pub. But there’s summat I haven’t told you.” Gheorghe seems to stop breathing, deathly quiet, with something of a _here we are_ in his lips pressed together. “There was that bloke. An’ I was lost, an’ drunk, an’ I know that’s no excuse, cos I shouldn’t ‘ave been drinkin’ in the first place but, I mean, if I’d been sober an’ all, I’d never-“

“What happened?” Gheorghe asks coldly.

Johnny swallows. “I… I followed him into the lav.” Gheorghe slowly closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, looking like he’s taking a blow in slow motion. “But nowt ‘appened.” Johnny cringes. “ _Almost_ nowt. I quickly snapped out of it an’ realised it was a mistake an’ I just wanted to be wi’ you so I left an’-“

“What happened _exactly_?”

Johnny takes his eyes off Gheorghe’s clenched fists on the sheet, glances up and meets his stern look. Thankfully he hardly ever witnesses it and, over the past three years, only a couple of racist bastards had to face it, but each time it shocks him, that Gheorghe can move from his usual softness to a rage in a split second.   

Does he want to know every single detail? Johnny is not eager to try to remember them, and even less to tell him.

“I’d rather not imagine it,” Gheorghe insists with the same barely restrained voice. He’s not wrong, though. It will be worse if he pictures something similar to what happened last time.

Johnny reluctantly complies. There’s not much to tell. When he’s done, Gheorghe stands up, grabs his clothes and gets dressed without a word. On the verge of panic, Johnny watches him helplessly.

“Where you goin’?”

 “Walking. I need to walk.”

As Gheorghe storms out, Johnny hopes he hasn’t made his nightmare come true.

 

*

 

Gheorghe reaches the top of the hill in long, furious strides. Still panting, he pulls a cigarette out of the packet in his jeans pocket, lights it in the shelter of his cupped hand and takes a deep drag, blaming himself for the umpteenth time for starting smoking again after Martin’s death.

He wishes he could get rid of the echo of John’s broken “ _I’m sorry”_ , heard halfway down the stairs. Yeah. Nicholas had been sorry too. Both times. Gheorghe isn’t particularly proud of the punch he dealt his ex before leaving him, but if there’s one thing he cannot stand, it’s being taken for a fool.

He isn’t even surprised at John’s confession. Rather relieved, somehow, that it finally came out of the shadows. Deep down, he’d known there was something wrong with John these days. Something unsaid, and not about alcohol. But he’d refused to look into it and face the truth. He’d refused to acknowledge he’d harboured illusions when he’d convinced himself that John’s infidelity, three years ago, was a one-off due to a misunderstanding. You think you’ve learned, and you fall back into old patterns, like an idiot. An idiot who was worrying himself sick, dreading that something had happened to John, while he was this close to fucking some guy in the same toilets as the first time!

On that Scottish farm, Gheorghe had come within an inch of telling John to fuck off for real. There were clearly many issues, and he wasn’t a masochist. They’d only been together for a few days. Not long enough that he couldn’t stifle his feelings, just like he could ignore the stubborn hope whispering that, with his help, John’s farm had a slim chance to not end up like Gheorghe’s own . That he might make a difference, this time. That it might even become a new place to call _home_.

The memory of the pub silenced it all, leaving only a twinge in his chest when he started getting away from John, who was unable to apologise, who didn’t even seem to know what he wanted from him. They were a hair’s breadth away from the loneliness John’s nightmare has conjured up, forcing him to fearfully contemplate it, like one would look back at the abyss after nearly drowning.

Without John’s last-gasp determination… But there were a _want_ and an _us_. Something probably even harder to say for John than _I’m sorry_. That he needed someone. Him. Gheorghe. And, since he’d left Romania, when had anyone ever _wanted_ him around --for himself, not as a cheap worker hired with distrust?

There was a new, wide breach in the wall that had begun to crack under Gheorghe’s first caresses, when they’d made love in the shed --the strength of his sudden desire to recreate that night surprised himself. And that breach was revealing a John damn hard to resist.

There was a possibility. A second chance, for both of them.

All Gheorghe had to do was say the magic words. If John followed suit, it would be a sign. They would have a chance to renew the bond they’d only had time to tentatively establish. And John replied with the right lines. _Their_ code.

 

He finishes his cigarette, gazing across the patchwork of fields, meadows and woods, embroidered with farms and flocks, glorious in the morning light. It never fails to soothe him. To make him a little homesick, too.

He'd thought he was doing a good job in concealing it, worried that it might hurt John. Yet, one day, a few months after Gheorghe had moved into the farm, after they had come back from a walk, John grabbed one of Deirdre's empty jars of jam and labelled it "Trip to Romania". Then, he proceeded to go through his pockets and put all the money he could find in the jar, carefully avoiding Gheorghe’s misty-eyed look. Afterwards, every Friday night, John added some banknotes. Gheorghe tried to tell him that he was, of course, appreciative but also uncomfortable, since he couldn’t contribute himself. John shrugged and muttered, “That’s what I would’ve spent at the pub if you weren’t ‘ere, like.”

Despite the wages Deirdre kept paying him at that time --he'd insisted on a clear financial arrangement so as to avoid any ambiguity regarding his intentions--, Gheorghe was dreading the end of each month. Unsure he could send enough money to his family, he was terribly aware that his choice to come back instead of holding down that better paid job in Scotland had repercussions for them. That’s when he decided to quit smoking, so he could put a little something in the jar. A penny saved is a penny earned.

In addition to relentless work, modernising the farm had cost the earth and left them hanging by a thread, financially. Martin never interfered in his son’s decisions but, at the beginning, he didn’t always hide his dubious or disapproving looks, which had John on edge. Later, noting the results, Martin started praising John's innovations, in a few laborious words when he was still well, and with a supportive look when his heartbreaking decline had made him lose his speech. But John's pride over his father’s approval was always short-lived, as if only Martin’s reproaches took root in him, while compliments were only fleeting.

Yes, it would be a lie to say it’d always been easy. John’s wall was made of many stones, some of them, heavy and well anchored, having been there for a long time. Together, they doggedly continued to remove them, one by one. John’s gentle touches grew more and more frequent and spontaneous. He usually seemed oblivious to them, but sometimes he would blink at his own hand and give a faint, almost surprised smile, as if marvelling at his new ability to touch and caress. That smile always made Gheorghe’s heart flutter like no words could.

God, he would do anything to make John smile again. It was like a ray of light piercing the winter greyness of Yorkshire every time. Falling hard for the John behind the wall, _that_ had been the easiest thing in the world. And not once did Gheorghe regret it.  

He refrains from lighting a second cigarette and sighs, running a hand through his tangled curls, eyes still fixed on the landscape. He’s overreacted, hasn’t he?

He’s out of his depth since Martin’s death, trying to keep all the pieces together. John. Deirdre. The farm. Being not so successful with Deirdre, and failing spectacularly regarding John. He should have reacted sooner. He thought John would get better with time. He should have known. _He should have known._ The worst part is that it’s easy to guess what’s haunting John’s mind. It was only human to feel that way after Martin’s last days that went on for an eternity. But at the funeral, Gheorghe had already understood that John was blaming himself for it. Later, every time Gheorghe attempted to broach the subject, to help John get it off his chest, he hit a wall. As resistant as the very first day, with John pretending not to mourn and refusing to be touched --until recently. And Gheorghe remembers the evening he came here, leaving John half drunk in front of the television and Deirdre looking out of the window, as if Martin could come back. He’d shouted at the valley until his voice broke, because he just couldn’t watch everything around him fall apart once more.

But he won’t let it happen. Not this time. They’ll overcome this. The farm is now making money and, with the sale of the north pasture, most of the loans will be repaid. Deirdre is slowly recovering, mainly because she’s too stubborn to let her grandson sink on her watch. And John… John will be fine again. He’s strong. And he’s right, through his nightmare. It was so close to never happening. Them, together. That makes it even more precious.

Gheorghe stares at a black and orange butterfly fluttering its delicate wings. He’s definitely overreacted, overwhelmed by his old fear that John could never be satisfied with only one man; that maybe John had seen him as an answer to his problems rather than as the man he really wanted. But ultimately, although tempted, John chose him. Him and no one else. And he’s been truthful, showing more courage and consideration than Nicholas ever did. Gheorghe takes a deep breath, his jaw aching now that he finally relaxes.

He makes his way home in large strides again, anger replaced by eagerness. The air has already warmed up. The farm schedule is too ingrained in him to let him forget he’s late to tend the beasts, but they’ll have to wait a little longer. He has something more urgent to do. The beasts are quiet, though, at least he can’t hear them bleating when he reaches the farm. John, or Deirdre --who’s kneeling in the vegetable garden-- must have taken care of them. He peeps into the house through the window. His chest tightens at the sight of John, slouching at the dining table, staring into space, eyes red and puffy.

He raises his head when Gheorghe enters the room. They lock eyes for a moment, then John starts standing slowly, hesitantly. But Gheorghe has already closed the distance between them, kissing John before he can say a word. They’re not good with words. They never communicate as plainly as when they let their bodies talk. That’s what they need the most right now. That connection. If the way John presses against him is any indication, he fully concurs. When they lips part, John lets out a long, deep sigh. As Gheorghe moves lower to nibble his neck, the sigh turns into a low groan, waking in him the instinctive, almost animal urge to use his hands, and lips, and tongue, to wipe the memory of every single touch of the other man from John.

 Going up to their bedroom seems already too much of a setback, but Deirdre could walk in at any second. They rush upstairs as they used to in the early months of their living together. Yet, once they’re both hastily undressed, it’s the memory of the shed that surfaces in the way John, shivering, grabs hold of Gheorghe’s body for dear life.

 

*

 

“So you forgive me?” John asks, his breath steady again, sitting with his back against Gheorghe’s chest, an old habit they’ve kept despite the larger bed. Gheorghe had missed having John leaning all warm and relaxed against him. He always feels he’s in the right place, when John’s skin is against his. He kisses his neck, behind the ear, lightly.

“You’ve been honest. And, all in all, as you said, nothing happened. So you did nothing that needs to be forgiven.” His fingers brush John’s forearm, going back and forth along the veins showing through his pale skin. “By me or by your father.” ~~~~

John tenses. A long silence stretches.

“Near the end…” John eventually whispers, almost inaudibly, “There wasn’t a day I didn’t wonder when he was finally goin’ to die. I just… just wanted it to stop. An’ when it did, I was…” He cuts himself off and chews his thumb, while Gheorghe keeps waiting, quiet and still, virtually holding his breath. “…relieved. I mean… fuck. I felt _relieved_.”

Gheorghe wishes he could lick that wound and heal it, as easily as he would heal a cut palm.

“You took care of your father for three years. Towards the end, you saw him suffer every day. Anyone in that situation would have felt relieved. John…” Gently but firmly, he makes John stop biting his thumb viciously and shift so as to look him in the eye. “You were a good son. And when your father passed away, he trusted you with the farm, he was proud of you and, above all, he knew that you loved him.”

“You think so?” John says faintly. He looks more faltering than entirely convinced but, hopefully, words will slowly sink in.

“I’m sure of it.” Gheorghe squeezes John’s hand, then lifts it to his mouth and kisses his abused thumb. “Just like I’m sure it’s about time _you_ forgive yourself, John Saxby.”

It’s not going to be an instant, magical recovery. But this is a first step. One day at a time.


End file.
